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How to build a life-size optical illusion.

The Ri's Andrew Marmery takes a break from Christmas Lecture rehearsals to describe how he designed and built a life-size Ames room for the show.

The distorted room was named after ophthalmologist Adelbert Ames, who invented the optical illusion in 1934. The floor, ceiling and side walls of the room are trapezoidal in shape but when viewed from a specific fixed point it appears to be rectangular. As Andy demonstrates, anyone standing inside the room appears unusually large or unexpectedly small.

Someofthebeamsatthefarend,there's somereallyweirddoublecompoundcutsgoingon.Soit'sprettycomplicatedstuff.Andoneofthosedayswas justdecoratingit,andfindingsome nicepicturesfromthecollection,which isquite a nicetouch, I think.Weprobablyfinishedoff thefloorabout45minutesbeforethestart of the show last night.Soitwastypicallast-minutestuff.

It wasreallygreatto see itworkaswellasitdidoncameralastnight.It wasreallyfantastic.

Andrew Marmery

Andrew is the Clothworkers' Science Demonstration Technician at the Ri. He's a veteran of eight series of Christmas Lectures, having arrived as an extra pair of hands for Monica Grady's lectures in 2003, and then stuck around ever since. He also prepares demonstrations that illuminate (often literally) much of the rest of the Ri's events and activities.

The Ante Room

Originally a small room off the lecture theatre used to store lecture apparatus. As the Ri developed through the 19th century it was used to showcase the institution’s growing art collection. The Anteroom was expanded to its current size in the 1930s.